Mother and child

A Perfect Woman

by Dorothy Dunbar Bromley,

It would be a bold writer who would attempt to have the last word on the much-debated maternal instinct. But since so many men have had their say on the…

They Dance Cheek to Cheek

by Kenneth E. Hartman,

A contemplation of my parents’ marriage

Eric Duncan

by Philip Roth,

By Philip Roth, from remarks he gave at a celebration of his seventy-fifth birthday at Columbia University in 2008. They are included in Philip Roth: Why Write?, which will be published…

A mother holds her child’s hand (detail)

by Eve Arnold,

Notes on Some Twentieth-Century Writers

by Rivka Galchen,

Flannery O’Connor: No children. Eudora Welty: No children. One children’s book. Katherine Anne Porter: No children, many miscarriages. Hilary Mantel, Janet Frame, Willa Cather, Jane Bowles, Patricia Highsmith, Elizabeth Bishop,…

By Night In Chile

by Lola Arias,

By Lola Arias, from her play The Year I Was Born, recently produced at the Under the Radar Festival, in New York. During the performance, eleven Chilean actors presented autobiographical…

The Hidden Mother

by Linda Fregni Nagler,

Motherhood

by Sarah Manguso,

In the beginning, waiting for the baby to feed or stop feeding or burp or pass wind or yellow liquid shit, I postponed showers, phone calls, bowel movements. With the…

Remember me

by Harper’s Staff,

The long good-bye

by Amanda Coyne,

Mother's Day in federal prison